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August 2022 - Things of Interest


 


1.         Tech workers are leaving their Big Tech jobs to work on fixing the climate

2.         Biden signs bill to boost U.S. chips, compete with China but U.S. chipmakers hit by sudden downturn after pandemic boom. Intel, Micron set to cut capital spending despite the new law

3.         In the U.K., discussions about fuel and food poverty are now joined by a new concern with what has become known as digital poverty – challenges affording the cost of online connectivity and devices

4.         Asset managers on alert after 'WhatsApp' crackdown on banks

5.         Chinese internet giants hand algorithm data to government and a Saudi student was jailed for her tweets, thank the Saudi regime’s enablers

6.         As Big Tech grapples with caste-based discrimination, Apple explicitly bans it. Workers allege that casteism influences how companies hire and promote talent

7.         Google opens the door for Android apps that work across all kinds of devices, paving the way for multi-device connectivity

8.         American Enterprise Institute’s Tech Policy Summer 2022 recap and Fall forecast

9.         Biden’s antitrust adviser Tim Wu leaving White House after shaping competition policy. See also, White House competition adviser set to step down in coming months

10.       And Republican FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips to step down this year

11.       What big tech thinks of the antitrust bill

12.       And Lina Khan’s new case against Meta is laughable

13.       Antitrust watchdogs go big on drama, light on plot

14.       US begins antitrust court battle against publishing giants’ merger. Stephen King testifies.

15.       The Department of Justice is preparing to sue Google over ad market as soon as September.    This would be DOJ’s second case against Google

16.       And Apple also faces growing likelihood of DOJ antitrust suit. An antitrust lawsuit against Apple would be a dramatic escalation in the administration’s battle against the tech giants.

17.       Amazon accuses FTC of harassing executives including Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy. Retail giant hits out at US regulator’s tactics in probe into Prime memberships

18.       Why merger policy matters

19.       European Union officials do not plan to appeal a court decision scrapping a nearly $1 billion fine levied against Qualcomm

20.       New competition can be the best antitrust medicine

21.       Why Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’ remains so controversial decades after its publication

22.       Salary disparity between male and female film stars

23.       Blackstone among those bidding for Pink Floyd's catalogue

24.     And find new music using this music map

25.       Where to start with Stephen King. You may have seen film versions of It, Carrie, and The Shining. This guide to the master horror writer might just persuade you to give them a go

26.       Podcasting will be a $4 billion industry by 2024

27.       [BOOK] How to Make Work Not Suck: Honest Advice for People with Jobs

28.       When did our phone numbers become the new identifier du jour?

29.       The Uber Files reveal the risk of private interests controlling our data

30.       How to prepare for and respond to a data privacy breach

31.       Data reform in the UK à The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

32.       Why do data projects usually fail?

33.       Australia considers strengthening privacy laws after UK parliament shuts down TikTok account [See Item 99]

34.       Federal Trade Commission is expected to launch effort to expand online privacy protection. Lack of a broad federal law has become a growing concern as online platforms and others amass troves of consumers’ search data and other information

35.       Congress wants the FTC to create a bureau dedicated to privacy. If established, it could fundamentally change how consumer privacy is protected and enforced in the US

36.       FTC filed a lawsuit against Idaho-based location data broker Kochava for selling sensitive and precise geolocation data (in meters) collected from hundreds of millions of mobile devices

37.       India nixes privacy bill that alarmed big tech companies, works on new law

38.       A combination of SMS and phishing, smishing uses compelling text messages to trick recipients into sending money or personal information. A report from Proofpoint showed that smishing attacks more than doubled in the US in 2021. Data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) shows that 378,119 fraud reports were filed in 2021 involving text messages

39.       Your robot vacuum cleaner a spy? Concerns have been raised about data privacy and smart devices around the home following the news of Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot who make the robot vacuum Roomba. Data privacy experts have highlighted that the Roomba could give Amazon access to floor plans of users’ homes, as they are able to collect spatial data

40.       The UK government is seeking views on its draft standards for ethnicity data, and its proposals for monitoring and expanding the standards this month

41.       And a U.S. privacy bill triggers lobbying surge by data brokers

42.       FYI: What are data intermediaries?

43.       These tips can help spot fake reviews on Amazon. With fierce competition between third-party sellers, it can be tough to find genuinely good products

44.       Facebook has agreed to settle a lawsuit seeking damages for letting third parties access the private data of users

45.       India's digital lending rules spark disruption and affected firms plan pushback

46.       Income inequality is rising. Are we even measuring it correctly?

47.     Britain recorded its biggest fall in output (11% since 1709) in 2020 because of COVID – a larger decline than any other major economy. British consumer price inflation is set to peak at 18% - nine times the Bank of England's target - in early 2023

48.     But Liz Truss, the frontrunner to become the UK's next leader has a risky economic plan

49.       After a year of negotiations, impasses and political manoeuvring, the Senate passed an economic package that would pump $700 billion into clean energy programmes, raise taxes on corporations, and lower health care costs

50.       Energy costs in Europe are increasing. Imported Russian natural gas is slowing to a trickle because of the war in Ukraine. And 20m U.S. households are behind on their utility payments

51.       Senator Elizabeth Warren worried Fed will ‘tip this economy into recession’

52.       The salary you need to buy a home in 50 U.S. cities

53.     Two from Project Syndicate (paywall) this month à Economics in the New Age of National Security and à The Real Stakes at Jackson Hole This Year

54.       Strategies to avoid merger fatigue. Leaders can avoid merger fatigue and misalignment during an acquisition by keeping employees informed and temporarily pausing integration efforts when necessary

55.     You could get paid to eat candy as a Canadian company's chief candy officer

56.       Sprite will shift all plastic bottles from green to clear to increase the chance they'll be remade into new bottles

57.       And how brands are addressing today’s pressing issues

58.       The Fortune Global 500 — the world's largest corporations, ranked by total revenue for fiscal 2021:

·         Walmart (U.S. No. 1 for 9th straight year)

·         Amazon (U.S.)

·         State Grid (China)

·         ChinaNationalPetroleum (China)

·         Sinopec (China)

·         Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia)

·         Apple (U.S.)

·         Volkswagen (Germany)

·         China State Construction Engineering (China)

·         CVS Health (U.S.)

🛢️ Saudi Aramco (No. 6) was the world's most profitable company, with $105 billion in earnings. For the first time, revenues from Global 500 companies from China (including Taiwan) exceeded revenues from U.S. companies, accounting for 31% of the total, Fortune reports

59.     Samsung heir Jay Y. Lee pardoned for crimes, just like his father

60.       During the pandemic, Netflix's stock skyrocketed off of superb subscriber growth. Now that the market cap has fallen along with subscriptions, is Wall Street to blame for never quite understanding what it was investing in?

61.     ESG investing isn’t designed to save the planet

62.       Domino's Pizza quits Italy after 7 years as locals shun American pies

63.       UN chief says humanity is "one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation"

64.       We haven't built for this climate as July heat records are shattered across the U.S.

65.     “We’re back, baby”: New bill boosts US climate credibility

66.       India blew up apartments worth $87 million to send a message. The demolition marked a rare win for activists over big and allegedly corrupt developers

67.       The food crisis is bigger than Ukraine. While Russia’s war has undoubtedly caused real problems in global food markets, they are different and more complex than what most news coverage suggests

68.     36 ways to live differently

69.       John Oliver gives Marjorie Taylor Greene a blunt fact-check on Monkeypox. The host of "Last Week Tonight" rips the Georgia lawmaker's cruel and homophobic take on the monkeypox outbreaks

70.       The pandemic changed the way we understand speech. A new study examines how certain now-common words influence what we expect to hear

71.       Why aren't smart people happier? A new way to think about brainpower

72.       The Social Capital Atlas: Data insights on how friends have an impact on you

73.       Genes involved in heart disease are similar across all populations, VA study finds

74.       Strange! It's now illegal for anyone under 21 to buy canned whipped cream in New York. It's to stop teens from inhaling nitrous oxide

75.       Don't be Meta or Google: How to tell workers they need to be more productive

76.       Your best employees are burning out: a framework for retaining talent

77.       The copy-paste technique i.e., the best way to start a new healthy habit is to steal it from a friend, is the easiest, most effective self-improvement hack, says Wharton

78.       Don’t focus on your job at the expense of your career and how to handle office gossip when it’s about you

79.     How to succeed in business if you are an introverted leader

80.       Does your culture fit your strategy? A big culture–strategy disconnect can be catastrophic. Only a formal assessment based on objective data can tell you if your organization is ready to transform

81.       Quiet quitting is about bad bosses, not bad employees

82.       How to figure out the power dynamics in a new job

83.       Passenger fined $1,874 in Australia after two undeclared McMuffins found in luggage

84.       A handful of states are driving nearly all U.S. electric car adoption…The climate, tax, and healthcare bill passed by the House [see item 49] includes a tax credit of $7,500 for Americans buying electric vehicles. But the vast majority of EVs in the U.S. market will not qualify for it. But these ones will

85.       Gossip has long been misunderstood – here’s how it can help your work and social life

86.       Elon Musk says 'Um' 20 times in a 5-minute speech. Here's how he could fix it--and so can you. Yoodli will analyse your speech and help you improve

87.       Stunning image from the James Webb telescope

88.       How long does it really take to form a habit?

89.       US government to make all research it funds open access on publication from 2026

90.     America's hardest-working states ... and each state's wealthiest person

91.       Cultivating serendipity…is it possible to organise your life in a way that maximises the chances of happy accidents?

92.       Sheryl Sandberg is officially done as Meta COO. What really changed for top-ranking women during her tenure?

93.       An interesting profile of Justice Clarence Thomas who “would become the most powerful Black man in America, using the astonishing power vested in a Supreme Court justice to hold back his own people”

94.       Experienced Truss favourite to be next UK PM

95.       Thatcherism is an obsolete ideology – but it’s the only one that Sunak and Truss have. The Tories see fresh thinking as a luxury, so their leaders are sticking with an orthodoxy that’s well past its sell-by date

96.       See where notable people were born

97.       62-year-old Canadian becomes oldest woman to summit K2 in Pakistan

98.       When something Joe Rogan and Mark Zuckerberg said cuts a little too close to home

99.       UK parliament closes TikTok account a week after launch. A group of parliamentarians raised concerns that Beijing used the social media app as spyware, the latest blow to the Chinese company which has repeatedly faced scrutiny from western governments despite denying sharing any US or UK data with the Chinese authorities

100.     Detoxifying social media

101.     Musk tweets challenge to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal for a debate on bots and Elon Musk’s lawyers subpoenaed ex-CEO Jack Dorsey for the Twitter trial

102.     This is the latest in a flurry of legal filings, as lawyers prepare for the beginning of proceedings in October.

103.     Facebook use plunges among US teens, TikTok has established itself as one of the top online platforms for U.S. teens, finds a Pew survey. Also, Meta raises $10 billion in first-ever bond offering

104.     Instagram influencers are standing up for creators with f*** you, pay me. Influencers are some of the workers featured in Reorganise: 15 Stories of Workers Fighting Back in a Digital Age

105.     How India runs on WhatsApp. The sixth episode of the podcast, Land of the Giants tells the story of how the messaging app became incredibly popular — and powerful — around the globe

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